Howard Norman - Devotion

“I’d’ve asked for morphine myself, hearing that news. So now you understand why I wasn’t invited to the wedding. At least I got to bake the cake. That meant the world to me.”

“Anyway—”

“I bet William didn’t tell you, when Maggie called him out and she and Janice left for Halifax, William shot six swans with his father’s shotgun from Scotland.”

“That can’t be true, Dory, the way he regards those swans.”

“True as we’re sitting here. I’d seen Maggie and Janice drive past about five-thirty that awful day. I locked up the bakery and drove right over to try and iron things out with William. Just when I arrived to the estate, I heard the blasts, got out of my car and set out for the pond. William walked right past me like I was a ghost. I went down to the pond and saw the swans floating dead. One, two, three, four, five, six. Counting them was the most convenient response, I guess, before the deeper truth of it set in.”

Dory closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to clear it, then opened her eyes, brimmed with tears.

“You want me to sit with you awhile?” David said.

“No. No, I’ve got my paperback. Coffee and sandwich are on me, please. Water’s always gratis.”

David left the bakery.

Maggie made another visit on October 25. Midafternoon, David looked through the kitchen window and saw William drive off in the truck. Maggie appeared on the lawn shortly after. David had drunk several cups of coffee after eating a cheese sandwich, and his head was buzzing a little. He quickly got his lens adjusted and was about to photograph Maggie as she carried a towel to the pond, but he stopped and said to himself, “How many photographs of the same thing do I need?” Maggie swam at one end of the pond, with the unperturbed swans at the other. When she emerged, toweled off and walked up the slope, David was entirely unprepared for what happened next. Maggie stopped about twenty-five feet from the kitchen window. Bending with stilted gracefulness, she slipped out of her bathing suit and stood naked, looking directly at David. She placed her hands on her belly. Her breasts were fuller now; her face was fuller; her very spirit seemed fuller to David. His wife was an enthralling vision; he felt bereft of touch. He set the camera down and stared. He’s without a clue — still taking my directive, she thought, when he should come out of the house and hold me. Maggie stood for a moment longer and then, towel wrapped around her, holding the suit, walked to the main house.

On October 27, late in the morning, David drove to Truro General Hospital for a final set of x-rays, which revealed that his jaw had completely healed. When he got back to the estate, he saw the postal service van just leaving. He parked the truck in front of the main house. “Hey, David,” William called from the porch. “I want to show yon something.” David walked over. “The mail brought you good news the other day. Now it’s brought me good news. How about that?”

“You referring to the letter you’ve got in your hand?”

“It’s from Mr. Reginald Aston.”

“Ah, the Queen’s swankeeper.”

“The fellow you broke my appointment with, correct. We’ve been back in correspondence for two months, give or take. But David, I need to ask you something. When I was half dead in the streets of London, what did I say? I remember saying something.”

“‘Tell Mr. Aston I’ll be late.’”

“I said that?”

“Word for word.”

“When I first wrote him, I made my excuses. His reply proved he isn’t a man above accepting an apology. He asked after my health. And now he’s confirmed a new appointment.”

“You’ll tell Maggie, I guess.”

“Right away.”

“She’ll be very happy for you.”

“Of course, I’ll wait till the child’s born before flying to London.”

William began to read the letter again. As David walked off, William said, “I’ve set a tape recorder on your kitchen table. Margaret asked me to. You’ll probably want to hear what’s on it.”

David hurried to the guesthouse, pressed the Play button on the tape recorder, sat at the table and listened to Maggie’s voice:

David: First off, apparently I didn’t mean enough to you that you would ever drive to my apartment here in Halifax and simply pound on my door until I answered or even wait out front of my building. Nor could you burden yourself to follow me to London or Amsterdam or anywhere else, once you’d found out which city the ensemble traveled to, which I know you did now and then because my faithful assistant Carol Emery told me. What sort of husband sorry for his actions would not do those things? What sort of husband? These are questions I’ve been asking myself. Have you asked them of yourself? Playing nursemaid to my father all these months — well, I’m sure it’s kept you busy. And I know he’s appreciated it, in his own way. In fact, I was glad you were there. But he’s been able to take care of himself for some time now, hasn’t he, and still you haven’t once been to Halifax exclusively to see me. You drove down to see a movie and a play with Naomi Bloor but not to see your own wife. Anyway, since you did whatever you did or didn’t do with whomever she was in your hotel room in London the very same day I departed our honeymoon for Halifax, I’ve gotten along. But I keep asking, lord in heaven, who is David Kozol to me now? My husband still on paper. Months back I actually listed the reasons I fell in love with you. One, I’d imagined you’d be capable of conversations always — you know, as we went through time together. Two, the bedroom was nice, got nicer in Islay, according to my lights, at least, so I imagined that into the future, too. Three, your understanding of how deep love could go, when you responded to that waitress on Islay. That was after our marriage, of course. But most important, I felt like myself. Comfortable with myself with you. None of this completed the whole picture, naturally, but that was my list, which I tossed out after writing it. Things like that are memorized in your heart anyway — you don’t need a piece of paper. Possibly we got married before we really knew each other well enough. But I never honestly felt that, and I still don’t. I certainly felt we knew each other very well on Islay on our honeymoon. Very well indeed. And I think now we have to begin a second marriage within the first one, which ended pretty fast thanks to you — but also, I admit, thanks to me not considering forgiveness. But I’ve been fuming. I simply refuse to hold my ignorance about you to blame. I read a Jewish proverb a few months ago, in Stefania and Izzy’s library, in a book of proverbs from all over the world. It said, “I’ll forgive and forget, but I’ll remember.” Maybe it originally pertained to some family grudge from biblical times, but I immediately applied it to us. Me toward you, I mean. Much just doesn’t matter anymore. Who what where when and why doesn’t matter so much anymore. I refer to the hotel room in London. What does matter is two decisions I’ve made. The first is, I’m naming the baby Stefania Field, and I am not soliciting your opinion. The name is not meant to slight my mother, and I’ve told my decision to my father already and he approved. Secondly, if we decide to stay married, if that’s in the cards, we have to live separately. To put it bluntly, I’d like you nearby but not in the same house as Stefania Field and me for the three months I get off with pay from, the Dalhousie Ensemble. And I might ask for longer, though that’d be without pay. Plus, I’m not sure the DE could get along much longer than that without me. By the by, I asked Naomi Bloor in person if she ever slept with you. She’s an honest person. My father has invited me to stay in the main house. Stefania Field can have the same room I had as a child. You may stay in the guesthouse. I always find it peaceful at the estate. My mother, as you know, is buried by the stone wall. And naturally you should spend as much time with Stefania as possible, for her sake. It would be an accurate understanding of the situation to consider yourself a guest. My husband, a guest living in the guesthouse. Oddly enough, these last months I’ve had more or less a fairly normal time of it, nights crying myself to sleep included, I’m not ashamed to say. I’ve been to European capitals. You’ve been to Parrsboro and back umpteen times, I understand. What you did was so disappointing, there’s times it unnerves me. But I’m disappointing in all this too. But do you know what? We’re no more disappointing, I suppose, than life itself is sometimes. I realize just now that’s a sentiment I heard Stefania Tecosky express a long time ago. But no matter, I also believe it. When thinking of you causes me pain, I just think of Stefania Field about to be born. Just yesterday I wrote to Stefania and Izzy overseas and told them our daughter’s name. I’m going to the doctor today. Just a regular checkup. On my own, except not really, because no pregnant woman is really on her own, is she, if you take my meaning. Anyway, David, give a second marriage some thought. As will I.